Kitchen Gadgets That Outlived Us. And One That Started a 30-Year Sister Joke.

Hello everybody.

It's Nancy and Sylvia once again with another episode of Family

Tree Food and Stories, and this one has a bit of interesting history.

We're not talking about food, we're actually talking

about things in our kitchen.

But before we go there, if you aren't already subscribed to our podcast

so that you get regular updates when we release every Thursday, of course

you can listen to the show any day of the week 24 7, which is kind of nice.

go to podcast.family Tree Food and Stories or family tree food stories.com, Please

subscribe and share it with your friends because as we like to say, every meal

has a story and every story is a feast, but this kind of feast that we're talking

about today is a little different.

As we said, it's not with a recipe.

We're starting with something a lot more simple.

We're talking about tools and gadgets because we did a post in our Facebook

group on a little, it was a, I call it a hand mixer that I found in a, in a

junk shop and put a picture on a page.

And the amount of people that responded that they still had

one in their kitchen was amazing.

Right.

It looked like a bicycle,

I remember my mom had one when we were kids and we always

used it to make scrambled eggs.

it looked complicated to use, but I guess you

No, not, not really complicated.

No.

Yeah.

For you maybe.

Okay.

Let's set the

stage here.

I am not mechanically inclined, so I'm one of those whatever's easy kind of stuff.

It reminded me of my dad's old hand drill, which had a similar

thing except the drill bit was in it.

and that was put together with tape.

Moms

wasn't put together with tape,

but from the humble spoon, which is read the, probably the

simplest gadget in our kitchen.

Two things that are a little bit more complex.

We've come a long way baby, haven't we?

Oh yeah.

And these tools are like food adjacent, They enable our food to be served to

us and it includes a lot of, things and we can't cover everything today.

So we're gonna spill over probably into another episode.

But you think about all the gadgets and things that we use in the kitchen, and

we take 'em all for granted, that does not even include the plates and the forks

and the spoons and all of that stuff.

So.

Or the tablespoons.

I think we do cover a bit about spoons.

But anyway, I think that this is at least a beginning to

kind of cover that wire front.

it's kind of exciting.

So spoon.

It's not just a spoon.

There is a whole family tree here of wooden spoons and

ladles and spatulas and spatula.

Do you consider a spatula spoon?

I don't know,

A flat spoon.

Yeah.

Yeah.

wait.

have you ever heard of this?

I think it's called a sportal?

Yeah, I've got a sportal, it's rounded, but it's got little.

It's kind of flat at the same time, I guess

Martha Stewart made a big deal with having sporal and all of a sudden sportals

were, all over the place for a while, and I think she was selling them for.

$50. 50 to a hundred dollars for a sportal.

You've gotta be kidding.

That damn

thing better.

Excuse me for

Yeah, you lost your mind.

Yeah.

No, it's Martha next.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So spoons are interesting.

I remember, my chef, we would occasionally be in a store like a, you know, just.

Not a junk store.

I, I call it that.

one of those emporiums that have all kinds of things, not necessarily

antiques, just old things.

We would always pick up a spoon 'cause they had a lot of collection of spoons.

And I was actually surprised 'cause I was at our farmer's market one day

and I posted this and there was a spoon salesman as one of the booths.

And he creates this beautiful.

Wooden spoons and spoons kind of have a place in, in a lot of ways.

I remember one, I watched sitcoms, as a weakness.

I pick up great lines in sitcoms for speeches.

But Ra Raymond that, everybody loves Raymond, about the famous spoons

that hung on their wall was waiting wedding gifts, a spoon and a fork.

Giant ones.

And when they took 'em down.

There was the imprint of them on the wallpaper, so they

had to put 'em right back up.

Anyway, it was kind of

Oh, I, I got a quick spoon story.

This, you're gonna love this.

So my sister, when she got married, her mother-in-law gave her a rack

of these, you know, one of those racks to put the spoons on and

then she, where you travel to.

So she had all these spoons and she kind of laughed about them.

Now, her mother-in-law who since passed, and that's not nice to talk bad things.

It's not like it was bad, but it was just kind of quirky.

She was a, a, a backwards, appalachia type of lady.

and.

This was a gift that she was giving of her heart to my sister.

Well, everywhere we went, Bob and I went, I found spoons and

I would give her, I would send a

spoon to her for like birthday and Christmas, and I would laugh

every time I put it in, you know?

Well, one Christmas she got me back.

She sent me that rack with all the spoons back to me.

I love that.

I love that.

Hey, what is it about wooden spoons?

there are actually recipes that say, use a wooden spoon, and I kind of had one.

and I've lost it.

So I have a different wooden spoon that's much newer, but I

really love that old wooden one.

It was just, I don't know, sort of like a cast iron skillet.

It had stirred so many things that it had a history,

I'm a, a wooden spoon fanatic, so I agree.

And my mom had one I remember.

I could actually see that wooden spoon in my mind, how it was a little burnt on

the tip and a, a little thin, because it had been used a hundred million times

in a, in a cast iron skillet, or a stove

Yeah.

Like, like, like us, Nancy, we're

Yeah.

We're a little burnt on the edge.

but there is some science to it.

It doesn't conduct heat like metal, so you're less likely to squirt a sauce.

It's gentler when you star.

There you go.

There's

a little

history science.

my dear friend Mary says, you know, all the goo that's on the bottom

of your pan when you're cooking all that good gunk she calls that pan shit.

So.

Yeah.

Okay.

The wooden spoon gets all that up, so it really adds more flavor.

I'm not a fan of spatulas, but yeah, wooden spoon is my thing.

I totally agree.

Yeah.

I don't know what it is.

Personality history,

It's a method, right?

you know, vintage is coming back in style.

We're buying vintage clothing.

Older women are appearing on the runways.

I'm fielding all the calls now to be on the fashion runways, and I don't think

I want me, but there there is that trend

Right,

and then there are labels.

Lale are another hero.

Now, I don't have so many ladels, but I do have a ladle that was given to us as, as a

gift from one of my mom's closest friends, and she found it at an antique store.

It's a silver ladle and it has the initial M for May on it.

So that was kind of neat.

Although Bob's last name doesn't start with an M, but I never

changed mine, so it's my l

yeah.

That's cool.

I bet it has a story behind it.

It probably does.

The story that I have is that Carol Kocka had gave it to me out

of her heart and out of love and affection, and so that's the story

that it has for us and it's important

You know, let's, let's digress for a moment and talk about that,

because collecting the stories behind these things and you don't always know,

but you know what's really fun about it.

You can actually.

Come up with a story and you can like, wonder who this was.

And you can write about who Mary maybe, or Mabel.

If it's old enough,

I remember just, in the writing class, I was saying, write about something in

your history and woman raise her hand.

She.

Well, there's this yellow dress my mother had on, but I don't see a story in it.

About three months later, she got back with me and she said, you know,

I remembered why it stuck in my head.

My mother got that dress for her 25th wedding anniversary, and

it just meant so much to her.

That's why it stuck in my head.

So, if you are having some curiosity about something, you ought to.

Think about what a story could have been, that would've surrounded it.

it triggers something in your head

it

doesn't take a lot,

right?

It can be very, very simple, the fact that, ladle, that silver

ladle probably has a story of its own somewhere before where somebody.

It didn't want it anymore and left it at a junk shop to where it has

a new story because it was a gift of my mom's best friend to me.

Yeah, there's a story.

there's stories everywhere is what I try to tell people, try to find them.

But, one of the questions I have that, um, always, always reading

things I probably shouldn't read 'cause they scare me to death.

But plastics, everything now is plastic and you have a plastic spoons, spatulas.

Lales and all of that stuff, and then you hear about microplastics and

forever chemicals and all of that.

I don't know if there's anything to that, but I try to use stainless

steel or wood where I can just because I'm hedging my bets.

Right?

Who knows?

Right.

And we talk about, gadgets.

there was this trend of these thick plastic, cutting boards that took over

wood, and they were supposed to be.

Healthier and safer.

Well, it turns out that's not true.

It's the old wooden cutting board

that is actually more sanitary for you because you can scrub and clean the wood

properly where the plastic all those cuts it gets in there and you're not able

to get into those micro cuts as well.

So apparently.

the plastic cutting boards are nixed plus there's more

character in a wood cutting board.

I don't know, but you,

Oh, I know, I know there is.

I don't know what it is, but wood, I think it's a connection to nature.

Maybe everything else is kind of.

Human made, but wood, it's, it's right out there looking at

trees and forests and pigs and

Our food is

connected to nature, right?

It doesn't, well, hopefully it's not grown in a Petri dish.

Oh, wait a second.

So this is a little slight divergent.

I heard the other day, and I'll have to check it out, I'm not sure if

it's true, but you have to read the labels of your meat in the grocery

store to find out if they are like.

don't wanna say lab grown, but there's some sort of Yeah, apparently it's

like, versus on the hoof, which is also kind of gross when you think

about, that's where you should know where your food comes from, I guess.

Wouldn't wanna make me a vegetarian,

I, that's a big debate.

I had this the other night at a restaurant, and when we started talking

about meat, and this woman says, I don't wanna know where it comes from.

I just wanna see a chicken finger right there.

Yeah, I don't wanna see a chicken

finger.

The idea of chickens with fingers kind of grosses

Anyway, I'm sorry, what?

What were you saying?

But apparently you have to look at the label to, let

you know That says whether it's grown in some sort of structure.

I'll call it a structured environment.

I'll have to find out exactly what it is and put it in the show notes

so people can check it out or put it in our, on our page as a resource.

But I thought that was interesting.

Well, that was a big movement several years ago and I

haven't heard much about it lately.

I guess people have other things on their mind, but I guess as meat gets

more expensive too and then people are more conscious, I mean, we were kind of

making light of where your food comes from, but yeah, Does make you think about

where your food comes from and lab food?

I don't, you know, I don't know.

Somebody could probably put a fake steak in front of me and a real one

and would I know the difference?

I don't

Oh, they did a test with chefs.

They say they knew, but, I don't think so.

Well, steak maybe, steak has a certain texture and they say

that's the hardest thing to achieve

in lab is the texture and how much that means to you.

You don't even think about it.

We are gonna have to do a show on lab raised stuff,

which is not very traditional.

But anyway, so let's go into knives because since we're talking about

meat, we might as well cut our

meat with a knife, not with a wooden spoon.

You know, I have, A carving knife.

That was my dad's, I always say my mom and my dad's, but it was the

carving knife that was always used to carve the Turkey at holiday times.

And so we ended up with it.

And Bob, Bob's a big knife sharpener.

He sharpens everything, you know, he, in fact, we were having dinner over at

friends the other weekend and he opens the knife drawer and starts sharpening all her

knives right there of the kitchen for her.

those things.

He can't stand it.

If

Right now he's picked up the name Bob The Builder

'cause he is fixing a screw in the drawer because a drawer was falling

apart and we dropped off screws for

could you ship Bob up here for like two weeks?

Yes, sharpening knives, definitely.

But, there's nothing worse than having a knife that won't cut through a tomato.

So I've got Bob for that one.

But every time we bring that knife out, I think of mom and dad and in fact,

at our Christmas party, which we do every year, usually about two, well,

we used to do it the Friday before Christmas so that everybody had a

chance to not cook for themselves.

They could have somebody else cook for 'em, and that was us.

But I always gave the carving of the Turkey to somebody else, so

they felt like they were part of

family.

Right In the community.

That was there and we found somebody who's an expert carver down here.

So Harold

Really

new Carver

Harold

party

man and we have a

car.

Right.

Keith back home in Connecticut.

Our neighbor Keith, was the carver, and now we've got

another neighbor, Harold, who's

and.

carver.

And let me add, I learned this from my chef because

we did some classes with children

and he encouraged them to use knives, but he taught them how to use knives,

which I thought was very interesting.

'cause you curve your fingers around.

I,

They

trying to think.

Yeah, you, Yeah, Yeah.

And, and that will save now

fingertips,

you know, that.

cut themselves on a knife.

Yeah.

but it always frightened me when he would be encouraging children to use knives.

But he said he had to teach his own children because as a chef,

he had lots of knives around.

And if you have 'em around, kids are gonna find 'em.

It's like if you leave a gun unlocked, you know your kid's gonna find it and

take it to school and get expelled, and your life's gonna be turned upside down.

Right.

So you don't.

You don't want that.

And the other thing about knives is they make you slow down.

A lot of people get their food pre-chopped now.

Everything's convenience oriented and that onion chopping,

for instance, makes you cry.

But it's a good cry.

Right?

I keep telling myself that, but it, it takes time,

It's a meditation type of thing, right?

When you're chopping and putting things together.

So yes, we'll call, knife meditation.

Maybe we should need do to a knife meditation show.

Say that three

times fast.

Yeah.

that would put me to sleep.

But don't fall asleep when you're chopping onions.

No, not gonna work.

Or anything.

then we have mixing bowls, but before we go to mixing bowls and whisks,

because I have a very kind of, hopefully it's a heartwarming story about a bowl

that we have and we'll be right back.

So Sylvia, we stopped with knives and we've taken this turn To something.

Well, we're taking the turn to mixing bowls and whisks not quite

as sharp, but ' cause we're round and we're whiskey or that's a

Air.

Full of air.

right?

But, the ritual of baking has become a big deal again.

And there's this whole tra wife thing.

But even still, I'm not a fan of the tra wife thing.

that's for

another show, but.

I know, right?

but to eat his own, I get it.

I get it.

But

baking, I mean, I

I think you can do that.

I think you can do that.

But baking, I mean, you can't bake and you can't cook without some

kind of bowl at some point in time.

Right.

And whisks, well, you've got the electric and the hand whisk.

I'm kind of an electric beater person.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

yeah.

I do, but sometimes I just like to use my wooden spoon and my

whisk at the beginning of baking.

Of course, when you can do the eggs and the sugars and things like that where you

can get them, or eggs are really good for that.

Uh, yeah, that's true.

I have a set of bowl that I guess we've had since.

a second.

You have a set of bowl or a set of bowls?

I do

have those from time to time, and they get me in trouble.

Okay.

Oh well anyway.

Old bowl, you know, old bowl that are like faded.

They're just plain old things, you know?

I don't know.

Do you have fancy bowls?

I don't have fancy bowls, but I do have a very special wooden

bowl and it's sitting on my counter.

It's a big old wooden bowl that Bob and I got during our, we were on our

honeymoon, which we drove up Route seven to Vermont, New Hampshire area.

The Vermont Bowl factory, which is no longer around, but it was very

famous, little tiny place at the time.

It burned down and they used to hand turn wooden bowls.

We have a wooden bowl from the Vermont

bowl factory and on the bottom when we got home, Bob carved in like one of

those little wood carver things, a little heart with our initials and the date

Oh,

is that sweet.

he's a romantic.

In addition to being a knife.

I know

Knife, whatever.

What do you call a knife

He's a knife Carver.

Uh,

I'll

some kind of a version

of that.

But, that is so romantic.

That's something you'll cherish forever.

absolutely.

and hope somebody wants it after you, you

know, that's the sad part

Yeah.

is that people don't want the stuff anymore.

Right.

But well, that's for another day when we'll talk more about that.

But yeah, so, Tools become part of that whole experience.

If you think about it, what we use, the whisk introduces air

into the, in, into all of that.

And I've got like two or three of those things in my,

in my arsenal and Okay.

How I acquired them, they're just plain, ordinary.

But got 'em, I've

think they were pyres.

They weren't clear Pyrex bowls.

They were the, the milky Glass bowls.

Do you remember those that our moms probably had, or, well, kids who are

younger today wouldn't know those.

You would get them at the grocery store and they either had a

flower pattern design on them.

It was marigold yellow or avocado green, some sort of print that was on it,

they were mixing bowls.

and they weren't quite ceramics.

They were not that

And I don't think it was a Pyrex, but it was something

that didn't break as easily as a

ceramic.

what they call that.

Yeah,

I see those occasionally in, the junk cabbage shot.

Cabbage shots.

You shouldn't say cabbage shots.

My, my mouth is between your balls and my bowls and my cabbage

we're having a good day today,

and

mixers.

So yeah, that, and now the whisk sort of takes us onto more the modern whisker, or

beater, beater thing, which is the, the picture that we had on the Facebook group.

It's a, I'll describe it for those who are listening.

It's basically a, a device that looks like the beaters on a, a regular electric

that are attached to some pole and a gear that makes it go round and round

When you turn it, and I'm, making the hand motions, like, you can't see this,

but it turns the little beaters on the bottom of this pole manually versus

electrically, and they're light, but.

You'll occasionally see them in a, in a gadget shop.

And it was surprised at how many of our, folks there our

little group had one still.

Or they used it, or their mom had one or Go figure, I don't

have one anymore.

me wanna find one.

'cause I do, I have an old mixer, and it's just a handheld and it's kind of,

half the time doesn't work.

So they always work.

If you're using your hands to make 'em work,

Right,

thing, right?

best tool are your hands.

But anyway,

They don't wear out.

and the stand mixer, the old fashioned stand mixers.

I've seen the original ones that made, I guess a GE or whoever made them.

but those were old, clunky things.

And now we have the fancy ones today that are like the

Yeah.

ones.

How many, like, I wonder how, they rank on, bride's

lists of things that they want today.

' cause

you know.

people eat out so much, become interesting to see where they, rank.

I bet blenders have probably taken like a lot 'cause it make

smoothies and things like that.

What do you have in your kitchen?

Do you have a

We have two blenders.

One I told Bob we have to get rid of because I hate cleaning it.

It does.

The bottom doesn't come off.

So I said, just get the plain old stupid blender that just the bottom comes off.

It's very simple.

I don't need anything fancy one that when you put ice in it, it'll be fine.

You can make a smoothie.

Get rid of the, the blender that makes the soup and chops up the

dog food and does just one thing.

I'm done.

So, Yeah.

Yeah.

Dave, get rid of the fancy one.

What else do we have?

We have a juicer that we've never used 'cause he wanted the juicer, gadget.

Gadget.

Bob Bob's a gadget guy too.

else do we have?

Yeah, I but you know, those big mixers, I don't have a mixer like

I had, I just have a little handheld, but I don't bake that much either.

Do

I do have a KitchenAid mixer that I have used a number of times.

I haven't made, done a lot of fancy baking lately other than

my bread, which, I use my hands.

Those are the two tools that, wooden spoon in my hands and a bowl,

Yeah.

pretty much it.

That's kind of kind of good, you

yeah.

But.

We are at the new age of gadgets.

So, you know, one of the other things that I do have, which I absolutely love,

and we were looking for a replacement part for it this morning is, and

I've mentioned it in past shows, is my mom's original Cuisinart mixer.

Oh, interesting.

It has a crack on it.

the base was white and now it's kind of a yellow.

It's had two buttons on, which is one button that you put your on and off.

And the other one was a pulse.

And that Cuisinart mixes chops and does everything better than anything else.

We have a new one that we got for the aids that took care of mom and dad.

I figured they would use it.

I've got the new one.

It, it's horrible.

I just

Ah.

like it.

Nope.

Isn't that interesting to hear?

the, top, just the little button that makes it stick

so it'll close so you can turn it

on.

Off is

gone.

So

old is good.

Old is good.

What about a garlic press?

Do you have that?

Or a mandolin

I have a man, I have two mandolins.

I have two fancy man, actually three mandolins.

Yes.

And I have shaved my fingers a number of times.

Yeah.

Then greater, I use that for Parmesan,

you know, one of those portable, greater things

I was watching the Lost Kitchen on Netflix and how she

was traveling and she had this really cool three-sided grater in

mandolin, and so I had to have it.

So it's more of a decorative piece, but I do use it and It's one of the

best things, but I have slice my finger on it, so I'm kind of careful.

Yeah, I'm kind of careful on that one.

But, that's the mandolin that I, I like the best.

And then there's a couple other ones.

My, my mom never had a mandolin.

We used

do you think people really have an avocado slicer?

it's called a spoon and a knife.

And that's what, yes.

Do you know there's actually something called avocado hand.

No.

What in the

Do you know what that is?

So when you cut an avocado in half right?

And

you, you, you, twist it.

One side always has the pit.

Right.

You put the avocado with a pit in your hand and you

take a big heavy knife that's sharp and smash it into the, pit.

Well, more often than not

people miss it and they, that knife goes into their hand.

And avocado hand is a term that's used in ER hospitals,

I bet.

'cause you know that people do

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So that's, that's it.

But, yeah, I love going into junk shops around here, especially, I didn't see them

as much up north in Connecticut, but down in Florida they have all sorts of wild,

old fashioned gadgets, and I have more pictures I'm gonna have to use for this

posting to show people there's a little.

There's a little bakery up in Micanopy, Florida, which is an old

town, one of the oldest towns I think in the state of Florida that has

a bakery and it has some sort of.

Wild contraption.

I have no idea what it is, Only thing I can think of.

It looks like a harrow that you would put on the back of a tractor, but it's small

that you would use with a wooden handle.

Only thing I can think of is that it was used probably, this is my made

up idea on pastry where you could then do lattice over the top of a,

Oh yeah.

Sure.

Well, that makes sense.

but, as our world gets more technology driven, I'm sure there are, and I don't

have a technology kitchen, but I'm sure we're reaching into worlds, to come

that we wouldn't recognize kitchens.

And so, I don't know, are we trading off the simple.

Small things that you find in the so-called junk stores.

are we just getting smarter and what's the difference?

you now have an Instapot, you have air fryers and machines

that just promise to do it all.

And so I don't know where, where does all that leave us?

' Nancy May: Well, my sense is that it's dangerous for mental health.

yeah.

right, we're, cooking and just being in the kitchen sometimes by

yourself is a sense of quiet escape.

thinking of quiet escape and, and old stuff.

You're never gonna Guess what I got this weekend?

I got an old fashioned crock butter turner.

No,

I

did.

I

did.

I am not

gonna.

It was at a, a little local shop that was closing down and I just loved the

way

this thing with the

they Tall

Yeah, it's about as tall as my knee.

It's a,

do you do?

well, it's got the, the wood pole and the,

the little, I call it flat.

It's

on the Prairie

why Yeah, like you chomping it up and down like

everybody got the big muscles.

I will not churn butter, but I thought it was so cool.

I just had to have one, so,

yeah.

come with instructions?

So, yeah, I think I can ask AI for that one.

Oh ai.

Will they talk about technology?

No, I agree with you though.

I think, when you do cook and I don't often, but you know, it's funny 'cause

you develop your own little tiny recipe.

Quirkiness, like quiche, restaurants frequently serve quiche, right?

But they never meet my standards 'cause I just have a special way I prepare my

quiche and it's really rich and it's only occasional, but oh, it is so good.

and restaurants, it just tastes like, you know, it's dry.

I don't cook often, but when I do, I want it to be tailored

and restaurant kes tend not to be fluffy.

They tend to be kind of flat, right.

Yeah, they are.

And I like fluffy.

So I have a quiche recipe that people go crazy for absolutely nuts.

Tell me once in it, tell me how you do it.

well, I'll tell you where to get the recipe.

It's Paula Dean's quiche recipe.

Love you, Pauline.

More fat, more butter than you can possibly

Oh, butter

heavy cream,

heavy cream.

Yeah.

it's her, uh, spinach, bacon, quiche.

And then I will not always use spinach or bacon.

I'll just put any, like roasted garlic, like I'll just substitute that

you can give, like I get a leftover pork chop.

Bernie and I don't eat a whole, we split meals.

We bring home pork chop even when we split, and I'll use

pork chop in it to flavor it.

not a lot.

'cause the eggs provide the protein.

Cheese provides protein.

And so you don't need a lot of meat.

And I'm trying not to eat as much of it, although now it's

kind of meat world, right?

Protein.

But.

eat a lot of beans, I promise not to stand behind you.

Okay, and speaking of behind, I think we're close to the end of this

show we wanna thank you all for being here with us because you know what?

We are so fascinated with the stories that we hear from you all and from

others because believe it or not, we all have stories about food.

In fact.

Another Sylvia, Sylvia France shared a picture, with me yesterday.

She had lunch with a friend, and he makes, was it beet pickled beet eggs

or eggs that are, in the pickled eggs that are in the beet color.

And so she sent me a picture of the jar of pickled egg beets that he sent her or gave

her, which I thought was really sweet.

every male has a story and every story is a feast, and you all have stories.

We would love to hear more about your stories.

You can go to podcast Family Tree food stories and send us your story there,

or join us on Facebook in the Family Tree Food Stories Group because we

have lots of stories going on, and we'd love to hear yours and share them with

others because we might get an idea of.

What sort of tool or gadget you use that's better than, I don't know, a wooden spoon.

How dare I say that?

Yeah.

Right.

That's the king sacrilege.

right.

Thank you for sharing our table with us and we look forward to hearing you soon.

Take care and be well.

Bye-bye.